Tentacles Are Scary

Guess what! Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro loves videogames. Always has. And while he’s been emitting noises about maybe making one for a while, not much has been confirmed except that he’s been talking with publisher THQ, until a recent interview for MTV. Now we know that the game will be a Lovecraftian action-RPG, but not for about three years.

Guillermo del Toro, known for Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy films, creates visually stunning movies. His shot composition and vision are just remarkably brilliant, reminding me (somewhat) of Gore Verbinski’s work, but in a very different way. Until recently, del Toro was on the hook to direct The Hobbit, but he quit that, which is disappointing to me because I’d have loved to see what he would do with the visuals of that story. Anyway.

Now, just because a filmmaker makes stunning films doesn’t mean he’ll make stunning videogames. And there’s practically a curse on Lovecraft in this business; no game explicitly based on the Lovecraft mythos has ever sold well, despite the popularity of survival horror in general and the richness of the worlds Lovecraft created. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was a profoundly underappreciated game, and it was the last one to my knowledge that went out of its way to advertise its Lovecraftian connections, though Dobry tells me that Amnesia: The Dark Descent is loosely based on a Lovecraft story.

Anyway, I choose to be optimistic here. While I have not loved all of del Toro’s films, I have loved the way they all looked, and that may be enough to capture the uniqueness of Lovecraft in a game. THQ hasn’t announced anything official, and no one knows whether del Toro will be working with an existing studio or will create one of his own to develop the title. But come 2013 or so, we can expect lots of tentacles and stuff rising out of the ocean.

About the author

Tap-Repeatedly Overlord Steerpike is a games industry journalist and consultant. His earliest memories are of video games, and hopes his last memories will be of them as well. He’s a featured monthly columnist with the International Game Developers Association, and is internationally published in an assortment of dull e-Learning texts and less dull gaming publications. He also lectures on games at various universities.

8 Responses to Tentacles Are Scary

Think of it this way, Steerpike – Can you really trust anyone else to do it as well as del Toro?

The only developer I have any faith in for a twisted horror experience WAS Ken Levine, pre-bioshock. Now, I’ll welcome a filmmaker.

.. Or the old Silent Hill crew.. Damn, why did I have to think of that..

Jason Dobry10/04/2010

Amnesia definitely draws on several of Lovecraft stories as its main inspiration, not only with the plot, but with its whole hinting-at-horrors-without-fully-explaining-them motif. Masterfully done. It follows his classic The Outsider more in theme than in actual plot.

Lovecraft doesn’t typically translate well into games and movies because Lovecraft rarely “shows” the monster, and when he does, it’s through the veil of twisted sanity and nightmarish focus. Furthermore, Lovecraft’s monsters can’t usually be killed by conventional game favorites like guns and rocket launchers.

Hellboy is a fine example. It’s clearly a Lovecraftian tale–those tentacled space-things are Great Old Ones and the villain Rasputin was trying to summon them. The tentacled thing at the end was an Old God, and it was stupidly and unbelievably blown up by a grenade belt. It just doesn’t work if you know the Mythos.

Lovecraft HINTS at horror and the climax usually offers only offers a brief glimpse of the true horror. There’s rarely a “boss fight” or big explosion at the end (Dunwich Horror is one exception). These things are exceptionally difficult to translate into media, and most developers aren’t up to the challenge. Hell–Lovecraft’s creatures, even the creatures’ minions, are so horrible that even to look upon them is to drive one batshit insane.

Dark Corners of the Earth had it right until it degenerated into a more garden-variety FPS. I was shotgunning Deep Ones and shooting Dagon in the face with a deck gun. Again, stupid. Deep Ones laugh at shotguns.

I liked Hellboy, its sequel, and Pan’s Labyrinth–whoever does his art direction for his creatures is phenomonal. He needs to work on this game.

The phrase action-RPG bothers me, though. It sounds like more shooting and killing of unspeakable immortal horrors. Sure, I can encounter and kill some lesser minions, but any fan of the Mythos will tell you that encounters with greater horrors are exceptionally rare and mind-snapping events.

If I’m encountering Deep Ones like a horde of zombies for the entire game, then it will suck. If I’m gathering clues (most of Lovecraft’s stories are just that–investigation, not fighting or action–another problem for developers), meeting people, rarely fighting a human minion and rarer still meeting something more alien, then it might rock.

Of course, there is no hope for humanity in Lovecraft’s universe. I’ll have to make an exception.

It’s true, traditional Lovecraft doesn’t translate well in most cases. In games and movies there needs to be a release, as well – a break to the tension, be it showing the monster or letting you blast it. My hope is that del Toro uses his vision to create a Lovecraftian feel without trying to make a Lovecraftian game.

And no one’s done sanity correctly. Making the world blurry shouldn’t be all there is. To do it right a game should show you things, even whole characters, conversations, and settings; but never tell you what’s real and what’s the result of your losing your mind. It would be interesting to interact with “real” characters and think you just experienced something that turned out to be in your mind.

Jason Dobry10/05/2010

Amnesia had some decent effects like cockroaches crawling through your vision and something that sounded like an insect chewing on your eardrum (made worse by earphones), but it could have used more. Horrible as they were, they eventually became familiar and were somewhat diminished by it.

It also had the now-familiar blurring of Dark Corners and some others. You’re right–story driven elements would be best and it’s certainly attainable. We just need someone to write it.

Gregg B10/06/2010

The problem Matt is that viewing insanity through sanity doesn’t really work, that’s why it always comes off a little clunky when you witness it in a game. In a film or book you don’t personify it, you sort of bear witness to it, but in a game it’s you who’s supposed to be going mad. I’ve got to say there were some brilliant moments in Penumbra: Black Plague which were subtle enough to make you question yourself and not what the game had just done.

Did you ever play Eternal Darkness? I’ve still to get round to it but my girlfriend said that it fakes turning your TV off which sounds pretty neat. Of course, the cat’s out the bag now and the backlight on my LCD screen would give the game away but when CRTs were the norm you’d have never noticed.

Finkbug10/06/2010

I think the first insanity mechanic was in the Cthulhu pen & paper game from Chaosium. It was effective, evocative but not fun: go insane and lock into catatonia or otherwise lose control. That’d be extremely difficult to translate into video game agency. Lovecraft was the enervated opposite of action and perhaps best translates in an adventure game with with a series of fail states, including the final one to the credits. dot dot dot

The others who created most of the mythos offer some other options. Maybe. Belknap’s “Hounds of Tindalos” has some slow grind action/horror potenial. Derleth’s hidden cities could be the most beautiful rendered visuals ever, though again it’d lean adventure–or a genius game designer.

That Eternal Darkness trick sounds like Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid, looking at the savegames on your memory card and stuff. It would scare the bejeezus out of me if some boss threatened to wipe my saves! THAT would impact my sanity!

Jason Dobry10/07/2010

I found this short (about six minute) indie CG video called R’lyeh that nails the Lovecraftian horror elements we’ve been discussing: